Red Letter Date
by BG Sparrow
Summary: Two-part prequel to my Time Circuits Trilogy. Three weeks before the events of Back to the Future, Doc is working on a familiar little project that sparks an ongoing disagreement between his daughter, Emma, and Marty. Originally "Light Up The Sound."
1. Part I

This is the prequel to my BttF series, The Time Circuits Trilogy. The original was written nine years ago when I was a junior in high school, and it can be found in my profile under "Light Up The Sound." I am leaving it up as a reminder to myself of how much I have grown as a writer since the conception of this idea. Any and all feedback is welcome. It's 2015, so it's time to celebrate BttF moreso than ever. And I'm gonna do that by sending this out into the universe for all the fans as devoted as me.

This story is dedicated to my dad, with whom I share an undying love for these movies and a father-daughter relationship I will forever cherish. Though we are quite different from Doc and Emma, it is our relationship that inspires me to explore the trials and triumphs of the father-daughter paradigm through writing and this fandom.

_Disclaimer: I own nothing from BTTF._

_Claimer: I do own Emma, however._

* * *

><p><strong>Part I<strong>

Wednesday, October 2, 1985  
>5:40 PM<p>

"Marty, finish your roast," Lorraine McFly chided.

Her mildly distracted son sat next to her with his chin propped up in his hand. Marty looked up from poking the smallest pea on his plate and scanned the table, watching his family eat like it was going out of style as they stole glances at the television set. He sat up slowly.

"Uh, I'm just gonna go out for a bit," he said, rising from his chair. His family continued to eat, half-ignoring him. "I'm full. Mom, where's that clock?"

"There on the bar," she said. "What are you using it for again?"

Marty shrugged. "Science project," he said, picking up the creepy, plastic black cat clock. He wanted to cover its giant eyes.

"You need that for Chemistry?" Linda asked, buttering a roll. Marty said nothing, heading for the door with the clock and his skateboard.

"If you happen to see Biff," George called after him, "tell him that presentation for the board meeting will be ready in the morning!"

Again, Marty said nothing.

He left without word, rolling his eyes. He had no intent on running into that chump Biff Tannen. He would probably have his head too far up his butt to notice Marty anyways. And even if he did acknowledge the "no-good kid," all Biff would do is make some pigheaded remark about his mother. Someday, karma would make Biff its bitch, and Marty hoped he was there to see it. The Humbling of Biff Tannen. Oh, the tickets _that_ would sell.

Jumping on his skateboard, Marty tucked his mother's old clock under his arm and grabbed the tail of a pickup truck at the entrance of Lyon Estates. He swapped cars a few times before grinding the back of his board into the pavement in front of an old, large garage. He picked up his skateboard, entered the tall chain link fence surrounding the place, and knocked on the front door.

"Doc! Doc, you there?"

He was about to reach under the doormat for the spare key when the door flew open. Marty leaned back as Doc's head appeared with its big, wild eyes and untamable white hair. He was in a lab coat as well, carrying several large rolls of paper under his arm.

"Marty! Hello," he said hastily. "Is that clock for my experiment?"

"Yeah. Did you want me to hang it with the others?"

"Just set it there on the bench. I'll get to it later," he said before dashing away. Marty stepped inside and shut the door, watching Doc run around frantically grabbing things here and there. He sat the cat clock on the workbench and raised an eyebrow.

"You know, Doc, if this is a bad time…"

"No, no, Marty, you're fine," Doc said from across the room. "I'm just trying to finish up on a little project tonight." He stopped in front of Marty as he ran by. "Can you be here tomorrow night about this time?"

"Sure." It meant having to think up an excuse to skip out on dinner tomorrow night, but he was more than happy to do it to see anything Doc had to show him.

"Great. And bring your guitar." With that, he ran off again.

"My guitar?" Marty repeated to himself. Casting the scientist a confused look, Marty followed after him. He disappeared behind a big, medium-blue curtain across the lab.

"What are you working on, Doc?"

"Stay back, Marty!" Doc said sharply. "It's not ready yet!"

Marty stopped a-ways back, but he still stretched his neck out of curiosity, trying to see.

"But what is it?"

"You'll see soon enough!"

Marty sighed at his fruitless attempt to coax a satisfying answer out of him. He didn't like this "you'll see" crap, but he knew Doc was set in his ways, so he wasn't getting anything no matter how much he asked.

Years back, Marty would have never thought that someone like him would become the unspoken assistant to the resident "crackpot" scientist; he barely passed his science classes, and Doc wasn't exactly going to have jam sessions with him. Still, a solid partnership had manifested from each other's refreshing company, and Doc provided the only consistent blip of 'interesting' in a boring world that more or less sucked.

And usually, Emmett Brown always had something in the works that he could help with. Whatever the project, three things were guaranteed: definitely out there, probably awesome, and possibly functional. Of course, there were some things Doc kept entirely to himself - stuff Marty could never even hope to understand - but now he wasn't even letting him help on the pet projects.

Marty sighed. Helping or not, he was not about to go back home.

"If you won't tell me what that thing is, can you tell me where Em is?" Marty asked, shoving a hand in his pocket.

"On the couch, last I saw," Doc answered, reappearing from behind the curtain to grab a wrench from a cluttered tabletop. "Tell her that she has to walk Einstein." He vanished again.

"Alright."

Marty leaned his skateboard against the wall beside the front door. He ventured into the depths of the sectioned-off garage, passing Doc's bed crammed in the corner, a section of wall filled with random clocks, and a refrigerator with a few feet of counter space next to it.

Meandering into the large, open sitting room, he found signs of life strewn all over its faded crimson-red decorum – the television was on, the couch had an open textbook and notebook at one end, and there was a plate on the coffee table with a half-eaten sandwich and some rippled potato chips on it.

But she wasn't there.

Marty crossed the living room, turning into a small alcove with two doors. He leaned into the doorframe on the left, smiling at the familiar flurry of movement as this girl tear furiously around her bedroom, her light blonde hair trying to keep up with her.

_She lost something again._

* * *

><p>Emma was stressed. Disgruntled. Beleaguered.<p>

She hated when things got misplaced, even more so when she had been the absentminded imbecile who misplaced whatever it was she couldn't find. It's not like these notes just up and flew away; the organization of her schoolwork was essential to her sanity, as one could currently observe. It was now getting to the point that she was desperate enough to start looking in places that just weren't logical.

But before she started checking in the freezer or between her dad's mattresses, Emma upended her school bag on her bed. Pencils and a protractor trickled over the books, binders, and folders, some of them rolling off the quilt to the thick, daffodil yellow carpet. She threw the book bag up by her pillow and sat cross-legged on the end of the bed, her back to the door as she straightened the messy heap of materials.

Peanut butter would be eaten before the night was out. Not the sandwich-for-dinner kind of consumption, but the devouring-with-a-spoon kind. Whether it would be out of frustration from not finding these notes or for the celebration merited by finding them, this night could only end with a jar of Peter Pan and _Andy Griffith_.

Marty glanced at the clock on her wall, half-offended that she still hadn't noticed him standing there. He reached inside the doorway for a rubber band on the floor next to the decorative four-panel screen, flexing it between his fingers mischievously. Without a second thought, he held his arm out and looped the rubber band around the tip of his finger, pulling it back with his other hand. He narrowed his eyes, aimed, and released.

Emma jumped, yelping and grabbing at the sting on the back of her neck. In the process, she lost her balance and toppled backwards off the end of the bed, landing on her back. Face distorted from the shock of how fast it had just happened, she scowled upon seeing Marty sniggering upside-down in her doorway.

Quickly rolling over to her feet, the corner of her lips began to rise. Marty turned his head, raising his eyebrows challengingly. At this, she promptly walked up to him, pinched the skin on his forearm, and gave it a good twist. His mouth immediately fell open.

"Ooow!"

She let go, a self-satisfied smile blossoming over her face. "You're lucky I wasn't near any power tools."

Emma returned to her bed, putting her bag on the floor and sitting back against her pillow and headboard. Seeing the sea green chaise near her bookcase covered with laundry and the desk chair sporting a hefty pile of its own, Marty took the foot of the bed, glancing at the innards of her book bag dumped haphazardly between them. He shook the pain from his arm.

"Couldn't you have just shot it back at me?"

Smirking, Emma revealed the rubber band stretched between her thumb and index finger. Before Marty had time to react, she pulled back the lower piece of the taught band, hovered over the red spot on his arm, and snapped it against his skin. Again, he cried out, clutching his arm against his chest protectively.

"Hush up, you big sissy," she chuckled, tossing the rubber band over to her desk. It bounced off the teal curtains to the side of the floral lampshade, and she resumed flipping through the folders in her binder.

"So, what brings you into the depths of the evil lair? Dad not letting you play Mad Scientist with him, either?"

"No. You don't know what he's doing?"

"Nope. I can't even seem to wake up when he's asleep t-!" She gasped at a paper suddenly, but her shoulders immediately slumped again. She shut the folder and moved to the next. "I'm never going to find these stupid notes."

"What notes?"

"The Chem notes from last week on organic nomenclature. I need them to finish the unit review for tomorrow. I had them when I did the lab report, but now I can't find them."

"Is that why you were dismembering your locker before lunch?"

"I'm desperate. Obviously I'm going to have to work on a better organizational system for college next fall. I can't have this happening."

Marty would ask why she didn't just ask her father for help, but he knew she'd say something about being expected to know it. He'd offer up his notes, but they were back at home, and her notes were extensive to the point that she was rewriting the book word-for-word, so he wouldn't be much help there. And even though she could be every inch the science whiz her dad was, she was young and had her weaknesses; organic chemistry was not for the faint-hearted. He'd already resigned to the fact that, even with her help, he was barely going to pass that unit review.

"Speaking of college, did you hear back from anyone yet?"

Emma left the bed, kneeling at her bookcase and targeting the encyclopedias on the lowest shelf. "Whitman offered me a full scholarship."

Marty made a face. "Isn't Whitman clear up in Washington?"

Emma shrugged. "Yeah, but it's a free ride. And they have physics _and_ chemistry."

"Well, what's wrong with sticking around here?"

"I am _not_ going to Hill Valley."

"Who said 'Hill Valley?'" he asked innocently.

Marty received a level look that said it all. She wasn't taking the bait. He swung himself up and walked over to her, leaning against the antique bookcase as she silently continued her hunt.

"Come on, Em. It's been thirty-some years since he taught there."

She gave an exasperated sigh. "That's not why, Marty."

Well, maybe it did have a little something to do with it. She didn't want pegged as "the old physics professor's daughter" whose departure from the university had been "on questionable grounds." People don't let you forget stuff like that, and it's just not the way you want to start your freshman year of college.

"Do you really want to be that far away from your dad?"

Emma sighed, moving up to the next shelf. "I still haven't heard back from Stanford. They've got everything: Biomolecular Chemistry, Applied Physics, Quantum Engineering. And it's a lot closer than Whitman. I still don't see why you didn't want to apply there. Stanford's music program is phenomenal."

"If you're playing cello in an orchestra."

Emma replaced the books to the shelf and stood. "What's wrong with the cello? Or the orchestra?"

"Says the girl taking Music History for an elective," Marty said, now following her to her desk. "I didn't expect you to take Study Hall, but why not another science? Or did you take them all?"

"My _deepest_ respects to Oceanography," she quipped with a smile, "but when most of my days involve nothing but equations, graphs, and arithmetic, it's nice to break up the monotony with a symphony or a sonata. And my other elective is Woodshop."

"You are an enigma, Em."

Suddenly, she slammed a book down on her desk with a frustrated grunt. Marty jumped, rattling nearly as much as her desk and the cluttered bulletin board beside the windows. The rubber band fell off the lampshade lifelessly. When she spun around, he saw the distinguished wild look in her wide, brown eyes. Things were about to escalate.

"I'm going to check the freezer."

Marty immediately grabbed her wrist, pulling her back to him. "Your notes are _not_ in the freezer."

"But I might have –"

"Em, calm down. _Calm - down_," Marty said, making her look him in the eye. When the crazy settled, he spoke evenly to keep her from shooting back up into space. "Now, your dad said you had to walk Einstein. Let's take a break, and when we come back, I bet they pop right out at you."

"Let me just check my desk again."

Marty snatched the papers from her hand, laying them on the desk behind him where they were safely out of reach. She went to protest when he held out his arm to block her.

"Fifteen minutes," he said, "isn't gonna kill you. So let's get Einstein and go."

She finally gave a resigned smile. "You win."

* * *

><p>"Do you know why Doc wants me to bring my guitar tomorrow night? Is he going to tweak it or something? Because he's not allowed to tweak it. I need it for auditions in three weeks."<p>

"You have more than one guitar. Don't tell me you don't."

"But why does he want me to bring it?"

Emma shook her head as they turned up the block, Einstein eagerly leading the way. "He hasn't been letting me help much in the lab," she said somewhat dejectedly. "Every time I ask to help or even go to _move _something, it's 'Don't touch that!' or 'No, no, not now.'"

Marty looked over at her. In the four years they had been friends, they hung out in the lab building stuff and performing experiments, not going to movies or skating around town like he did with his other friends. And there was a reason for that - she had always been up to her elbows in whatever Doc was working on. He had been a little put off by Doc's sudden seclusion, too, but it was clearly bothering his lifelong apprentice. It occurred to him that she just didn't know what to do with herself.

"He's been like this before," he tried gently. "Gets really excited and just goes to town."

"Yeah. I hope that's all it is."

Marty's eyebrows deepened. "What do you mean?"

"He's just…isolated himself. And not just behind that curtain, either. There's paper in the windows and a heavy duty padlock on the storage room at the end of the hallway."

Beyond the small kitchen area and the entrance to the living room in the converted garage, Marty envisioned the large double doors at the end of the hallway. The storage room had walls lined with spare parts, boxes of junk, and projects on hiatus. Marty remembered that after first befriending Doc and Emma, the three of them had taken a whole weekend to organize the room, after which they went to Burger King for milkshakes. Maybe he was trying to condense the brainwave analyzer again.

"What do you think he's hiding?"

"It's a decent-sized room. There could be anything in there," she said as they rounded another corner. "When I woke up last Thursday, I was coming out of the living room and he was coming out of the storage room still in his clothes from Tuesday. He was in that room for over a day."

"You think it's got anything to do with what's behind the curtain?"

"No, this is wholly different. That room has never been off limits."

Marty slowed a bit, falling out of step with her. Emma looked back over her shoulder as Einstein continued to heartily pull her along.

"What are you doing? Come on."

"You know what's behind the curtain, don't you?"

"No."

"Then how do you know it's not part of what he's doing in the storage room?"

Emma laughed. "Marty, I have no idea what's going on! Did you not hear me a few minutes ago? I haven't been allowed to _touch_ stuff."

Marty narrowed his eyes, shaking his finger at her. "No, I think you know."

Suddenly, Einstein started running, jerking Emma from beside him and down the stretch of sidewalk. "I do not!" she yelled back at him, stumbling to keep up. "Einie! Whoa, boy!"

Marty watched them fly around the corner before he took off after Einstein's barks and Emma's rising voice. He heard a crash and, heart hammering, wheeled around the corner. Thankfully, instead of finding her in the street washed in headlights, Emma was lying in an awkward tangle with a garbage can, its lid shining in the streetlights as it spun to a stop on the sidewalk. Up the road, Einstein ran for the lab, leash snapping off the pavement behind him.

Emma pushed herself up on her elbows with a game chuckle, shaking out the wrist she had wrapped the leash around. Seeing Marty jogging towards her, she smirked and kicked the garbage can at him. After a flash of panic crossed his face, he cleared it, landing on both feet in front of her. She nodded approvingly as he panted.

"Five."

He huffed out a laugh. "That's it?"

"Listen, Donkey Kong. You do a front flip, then we'll talk about a score of six."

Marty took her hand and pulled her up. "_Six_?"

Emma dusted herself off, picked up the trash can, and shrugged as they started walking again. "I mean, if you think you can do a side aerial…"

"What's behind the curtain, Em?"

She sighed. "Fine. I know what's behind the curtain."

Marty's eyes lit up. "What?"

She looked around, leaning towards him conspiratorially and whispering, "My dad."

The ends of Marty's lips curled into a tight smile, and he took the back of Emma's arm, holding her next to himself as she grinned at the ground.

"Remind me why I put up with you."

"Your science grades."

"Oh y—"

"Hey! _That's_ where my notes are!"

Marty let go of the back of her arm, but they made little effort to increase the space between themselves. He quirked an eyebrow at her as they reached the garage where Einstein sat happily on the doormat wagging his tail.

"Where?"

"_Mathematic Foundations of Quantum Mechanics_," she said excitedly, taking the leash off Einstein and letting him in the house. "It's that really old book of my dad's that we've used on several science projects. Hilbert Space, the Eigenvalue Problem, Quantum Theory –"

"What does naming organic compounds have to do with quantum mechanics?" Marty asked, not sure he would even understand the answer she would supply. He didn't know his way around the interconnectedness of sciences, but it didn't seem likely to him that she'd be using a book with that title for reference on an organic chemistry unit review.

"I did my homework at the work bench last week when Dad set up that giant curtain, and he had that book out," she said. "I was trying to get a look at whatever it was, but he said it was a surprise. They must have gotten closed in the book."

"Guess we'll find out whatever it is tomorrow then," he said, reaching past her for his skateboard inside the door. He stood tall in front of her, staring her down. "Or, at least, _I_ will."

Emma pushed him off the doormat playfully.

"Work on that side aerial, McFly."

**. Please Review .**


	2. Part II

**Part II**

Thursday, October 3, 1985  
>2:37 PM<p>

"You're going to tutoring?"

Marty shrugged, snaking through the congested halls and opening his locker. Two of his band mates were in tow, looking at him as if he had just grown a second head.

"I go to tutoring, Steve. Maybe you and Mick should go once in a while."

His drummer nudged his bassist, nodding to the book Marty was holding. "He's got his Chem stuff. He's just going to see his girlfriend."

"Guys," – Marty shut his locker loudly – "for the hundredth time, she is not my girlfriend."

"That's not what Andy said," Mick chuckled. "He said you two sit together in History and do all your science projects together."

"And when she _does _come out of the Chem lab to come to lunch, she always sits at our table."

"By you."

"And you're at her house all the time."

"Yeah, well, I'm friends with her dad, too," Marty said, moving around them slowly and heading towards the library. Steve and Mick broke out into loud guffaws.

"You still hang around that crackpot Brown?"

"I guess he has to, if he's dating his daughter."

"Did he threaten to melt your brain if you broke up with her?"

"Or did he brainwash you into doing it?"

Marty turned around, raising his hand and stopping the two boys in their tracks. They bit their lips to stifle their laughter. Marty got that virtually no one understood and respected Emmett Brown, and Emma was guilty by association. Hell, _he_ had a hard time understanding them sometimes. But that didn't make it okay for them to be persecuted by people that didn't even take the time to know them.

"Look, ease up, alright? Doc isn't a crackpot, and Emma is not my girlfriend," he said, straightening uncomfortably as the words left his mouth. "Why do you guys gotta rag on them so much? Afraid they'll 'melt your brain?'"

Mick snorted. "Hell no."

Marty raised his eyebrows. "Then…?"

Steve looked at the ground. "They're just weird, dude."

"And you're at their house all the time."

Marty sighed. "Weird or not, back off," he said civilly. "I'll be over at Andy's for practice in half an hour."

* * *

><p>Marty's band mates were top-notch guys. Sometimes dumb as a box of rocks, but great guys nonetheless. They clicked and made one hell of a band together, and it didn't take much for Marty to envision The Pinheads headlining at the dance come mid-November with the talent they exuded. Sometimes, though, it irked him the way they shrunk over their trays when Emma would come to lunch, awkwardly acknowledging her with small conversation while throwing smirks and winks at him when she wasn't looking.<p>

Still, they backed off when he told them to. They just needed reminded every so often. The "girlfriend" comments never seemed to run their course, however. Yes, he would tell them, he was quite aware of girls like Samantha Bradford, Amy Jackson, and Jennifer Parker, and he'd win one of them when they saw him shredding up on the guitar at the dance. Girls dug rock stars, but until then, he was the son of George McFly and a family friend of the Browns - a nobody to anybody that called the shots.

Whatever. His time was just around the corner. He could feel it – the success, the stage, hot girlfriend, screaming fans, everything he ever wanted. The hope and prospect of making a new life he could be proud to say was his pumped through his heart every moment of every day, and to want something that strongly, well, it had to happen, right?

But as he looked into the glass window-walls of the library at Emma settling at her usual table, it suddenly occurred to him that such a future put a lot of distance between him and the time he enjoyed spending with her and Doc. Sometimes, that fenced-off garage was more of a home to him than anywhere else. Parting ways with those long afternoons of strange experiments and science projects was going to be bittersweet when the time came. How else were they going to fit into that future unless Emma was actually with him?

Marty blinked at her through the glass. Of all the times he'd brushed away the speculations of others, he'd never even really entertained the idea beyond brief mental images of them holding hands.

He started when she glanced up across the room at his dead stare. Swallowing as that strange train of thought came to a screeching halt, he twisted a crick out of his neck and entered the library, his footsteps mute on the carpeted floor. He worked himself out of his reveries on his way to her table bemused expression.

"Something wrong?"

"Yeah." He slid into the chair across from her. "You won't tell me what's behind the curtain."

"Why do you gotta twist my arm about this?"

"Because I have a half hour to kill."

Emma opened Marty's Chem book to his red-streaked unit review. He gave a slight cringe; knowing it was going to be a bloodbath didn't make it any easier to look at.

"Then maybe you should take advantage of Mr. Hablock's offer."

"It's gonna take longer than that to redo all the problems I missed, Em."

"Then get started on it. You won't have time later."

"Excuse me," - Marty and Emma looked up at the timid, gangly freshman standing at the edge of the table - "are you Emma Brown?"

"Yeah."

"My biology teacher couldn't stay for tutoring today, and he told me you might be able to help me with cellular structure and composition. Do you mind?"

"Of course not," she smiled. "Have a seat. Marty, I have to help someone now."

"What if I want to stay and redo my unit review?"

"_Do_ you want to stay and redo your unit review?"

A staring contest evolved between them, the freshman eyeing them uncertainly. Marty's will was the first to bend, and he closed his Chemistry book with a wry smile, sliding it off the table as he stood. He patted the freshman on the shoulder.

"Don't worry. She'll have you reciting that stuff like poetry within the hour."

A genuine smile came to Emma, and she looked up at Marty despite the warmth on her cheeks. His lighthearted sneer softened, and for the long moment their eyes locked, his heart gave one sound thump. He huffed out a laugh at the sensation rippling over his skin, looking down at the table and back at her. Her eyes had never left him.

"I'll see you tonight," he said. "Six-ish?"

"Yeah."

He nodded, pocketing his free hand. "Okay. Cool. Good luck with those cells, kid."

The freshman watched his tutor's eyes follow Marty out of the library and down the hall. When she finally looked back up at him, his face was smug. He waggled his eyebrows at her suggestively.

"What's going on at six?"

Emma's entire face went aflame. Clearing her throat, she picked up his biology book and gave him a stern look.

"Let's get started, shall we?"

* * *

><p>Practice wasn't as productive as he'd hoped, and dinner was same old, same old. The Mystery of the Curtain, his band mates' observations about him and Emma, that stupid unit review, and that crazy prickling erupting over his body in the library all had him preoccupied. But such skittish thought only made the afternoon tick by at a painstakingly slow pace. When it was finally a quarter til six, Marty practically leapt from the dinner table.<p>

With his little yellow Chiquita slung over his back, he turned up John F. Kennedy Drive at the 7-11. The bell above the door jingled, and he looked over, slowing when he saw that it was Emma. She paused, looking up from between the two large paper bags with a smile.

"Hey, buddy," she said, handing him one of the bags. He groaned; its weight caught him off guard.

"Hey, _pal_," he said, falling into step with her. He started rifling through the top of the bag. "What's in this thing?"

"Peanut butter, amongst other things."

Marty gave her a look. Of all the people, this girl was the only person he knew that would have enough peanut butter to survive a nuclear fallout. She consumed an obscene amount of peanut butter. There was a specific bin just for empty peanut butter jars in the garage, not to mention all the ones that had been repurposed around the lab.

"Em, did you seriously eat all eight jars that were in the cupboard a week ago?"

"No. I ran out of chunky."

"Oh. Well, just so you know, there's no shame in admitting you have a problem."

"But I complain about you to anyone that'll listen."

His eyes widened on her expectantly, and she laughed when he elbowed her.

"You are such a smart ass."

"And you're a big sissy."

Emma opened the chain link fence, and Marty followed her inside the lab to the kitchenette, sitting the heavy grocery bag on the counter next to hers. He swung his guitar around from his back and lifted the strap over his head, looking around the quiet lab.

"Doc? Doc, you here?" Marty took a few steps towards the curtain curiously.

"Is he over there?"

"No. Doc?"

Suddenly, a heavy shackling sound came from the end of the hallway. Marty rejoined Emma at the kitchen counter, and they watched one of the large doors to the storage room creak open fractionally, Doc slipping out from the black void. He did a double-take when he saw them.

"Well, you two are early," he said, locking the doors.

Emma folded her arms over her chest, exchanging looks with Marty. He glanced back up at the scientist suspiciously, tossing his head towards the storage room.

"What's going on in there, Doc?"

"Never mind the storage room," Emmett said, corralling them over into the lab. "It's time to show you what's behind the curtain."

A switch flipped in Marty's mind. The Secret of the Storage Room vanished from thought as the Mystery of the Blue Curtain tempted him with a gratifying resolution. He stopped between Emma and Doc in front of it, eyeing it hungrily. He had waited a whole twenty-four hours for this, and he was ready.

Doc turned around to the control board and back again holding the end of a very long cord. He handed it to Marty, who accepted it slowly.

"Plug it into your guitar," Doc instructed. As Marty did this, he watched Doc turn back to this control board, flipping switches, pressing buttons, and spinning knobs. He looked over at Emma, disturbed by the arch in her eyebrow. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, and he levelled his brow. With that look on her face, she _had_ to know what was about to happen. Fearfully, he looked back over at her father.

"Doc?"

"Get ready, Marty," he advised, turning the last dial all the way up. He ran to Marty's side, looking eagerly up at the curtain. Marty was now unsure if he really wanted to know what was behind it. "All right! Play something."

"Wh- Shouldn't you take the curtain off first?"

"Just play something!"

With one more look over at Emma, Marty squared his shoulders forward and strummed his guitar.

A wave of palpable, ear-splitting sound blasted them off their feet. Marty and Doc collided mid-air, knocking over a card table covered in heavy tools and spare parts. They collapsed at the base of a wooden shelf, horrified as it groaned to life. The armchair against the shelf thankfully caught it, and an avalanche of books, papers, and blueprint rolls smothered them. The curtain, having blown off its railing, neatly blanketed the mess.

Doc panted next to Marty when the noise settled. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." He grimaced. "Something's got my ankle."

Doc scrambled out, pushing the shelf upright as the curtain clung to his shoulders and back. He threw it aside, helping Marty unearth himself from the rubble. A toolbox rolled off his ankle, and it throbbed painfully. Marty leaned on the arm of the chair, awed by the massive speaker towering before him.

"It's an amplifier," he gasped. "Shit, Doc, that thing is huge!"

"The CRM-114 isn't mobile," Doc said, catching his balance on the back of the armchair next to Marty, "but you can use it for your band tryouts in a few weeks."

"How did you-?"

"Great Scott!"

Doc suddenly slipped and stumbled around the front of the chair. Emma was on the cement floor unconscious, partially hidden under the work bench by the fallen papers. Marty quickly slid on his knees next to them. Doc propped Emma up in his arm, her head dropping against his chest as he examined the back of it.

"Is she okay?"

Doc frowned. "She hit her head off the table. Good and hard, too."

"I'll get some ice." His ankle ached when he stood, and he started hobbling towards the icebox. "For both of us."

"I'm taking her to the couch."

Planting his left foot, Doc picked up Emma and maneuvered through the debris strewn before the amplifier. Once free of schematics and notes underfoot, he rounded the corner and entered the sitting room, carefully laying her on the couch. She moaned as he fitted a throw pillow under her pounding head. Emma squinted her eyes open. Her father blurrily came into focus.

"You couldn't have carried me another twenty feet to my bed?"

"You have a devil of a goose egg on the back of your head," Doc said, sitting on the edge of the coffee table. He turned on the television and handed her the remote. "Likely a concussion. I don't want you falling asleep for a while."

"What prompted you to build an 8-foot tall amplifier?"

"Well," he sighed, "you mentioned band auditions a few days ago, and Marty seemed pretty excited about it when he came over that night. Besides, I needed a break from-"

Emma sat up immediately, staring at him. "From what?"

Emmett smiled at his ever-inquisitive daughter, gently taking her shoulders and easing her into the back of the couch. "Rest."

"I'm going to break into the storage room the next time you're not home."

Emmett pressed his lips together tightly. The bad part was that he knew that she would succeed in the endeavor. Bolt cutters and welding gear were quite literally child's play to her, not to mention she could just give the padlock one good smash with a sledgehammer and be in. A cunning smile came to her as Marty limped in, falling next to her on the couch.

"You might as well just tell me."

Doc's eyes narrowed on her severely. "You are a healthy scientist, Emma, but you act just like you mother."

Marty chuckled, propping his ankle up on the coffee table with an icepack on it. "I still think she was cloned."

Emma threw him a look.

"It's a valid theory," Marty defended. "He's a scientist. He's 'Emmett,' you're 'Emma…'"

"No," Doc said, glaring at his daughter, "she's just as snarky and assertive as her mother was. It's the infirmary all over again," he muttered as he stood up, heading out into the lab. "Don't let her fall asleep, Marty! I'll be out here cleaning up this mess if you need me."

Marty nudged Emma when he was gone, handing her an icepack, a spoon, and her jar of chunky peanut butter. "The infirmary?"

Emma rolled her eyes with an emerging smile, wincing as she touched the icepack to the back of her head. "When Dad taught at the university, he was in an explosion that sent him to the infirmary. My mom was the nurse that tended to him, and she wasn't all that nice to him."

"Your mom was a nurse?"

"Yeah. I showed you a picture of her, didn't I?

Marty recalled the one picture he'd seen of her mother – a petite woman with short black hair, a younger Doc towering over her as they smiled side-by-side. He picked up the remote and changed the channel on the TV.

"Not in a nurse's outfit. I thought she was a professor like your dad."

"Nope," Emma said, unscrewing the lid on the peanut butter jar. "She ridiculed him every time he'd come in after something blew up in his face. They hated each other."

"And they got married?"

"Ten years later. Funny how things work out, huh?"

Marty always admired the way Doc dealt with Emma's aggressive sarcasm; she was a pistol, and he himself barely had replies for her straightforward quips sometimes. He could only imagine Doc having to put up with twice as much of it as he did now. But then again, Marty occasionally wondered how he would deal with being handed a newborn and losing his wife within minutes of each other.

If he could admire the scientist for anything, it was putting up with that every single day.  
>"Aren't you supposed to be redoing your unit review?"<p>

Marty blinked away from the television. "I'm injured," he said, motioning to his iced ankle. "That, and I've been charged with your well-being. I take that seriously."

Another loud blast suddenly came from out in the lab, and the wall to Emma and Marty's left shook violently, a set of candelabras crashing to the floor next to a broken picture frame. Marty sat up.

"What the hell?"

"Dad?" Emma yelled. "What are you doing?"

Moments later, Doc staggered into the doorway of the living room holding his forehead, Marty's guitar slung sideways around his neck. Several sheets of graph paper wafted after him.

"Obviously the volume needs fixing," he said, swatting a sheet off his arm. "I turned it halfway down, and it still has enough force to knock you over."

"Maybe you should just turn it off and tell me what's in the storage room," Emma called as he walked away.

"Eat your peanut butter!"

Emma scowled in the direction of the door.

"You heard the man," Marty said at length.

She rounded him. "I will shove this spoon up your nose."

At this, Marty snorted out a laugh. Eyes smoldering, Emma moodily dug a generous scoop from the jar and stuck it to Marty's nose, silencing his snickering. It hung there, spoon and all, and she almost cracked a smile when he crossed his eyes to see the new appendage on his face. He looked up at her calmly.

"Really?"

"You're lucky I wasn't near any power tools."

"Aren't I always?"

* * *

><p>Satisfied that the lab was at least back to where it had been before the amplifier had blown it to hell, Emmett balled up the infamous blue curtain and laid it on the work bench next to Marty's guitar. He shut off the CRM-114 and pocketed the volume knob so that it couldn't be used until he fixed it in the morning. Gazing at his bed longingly, he turned off the lights over the main portion of the lab, but Emmett was not entirely enveloped by darkness. He looked over his shoulder; the entrance of the living room was glowing silently.<p>

Approaching the doorway, faint voices from the television floated around him. His face fell as he crossed to the back of the room where the couch was, his daughter and Marty sound asleep in the strange shadows the television cast on them.

Marty's head was lying on the back of the couch, soft, hollow snores coming from his open mouth. The icepack on his ankle had leaked a small puddle onto his pant leg and the coffee table. Emma was balled up; her feet were tucked into the cushions at Marty's side, and her face was buried into the crevice next to the sofa's arm. A half-eaten jar of peanut butter had rolled under the coffee table.

The corner of Emmett's mouth pulled to the side. He rolled over his wrist to see that it was well past midnight.

Alright, so he couldn't be too upset that they had fallen asleep by now.

He reached under the coffee table for the jar of peanut butter, capping it and sitting the spoon on the lid. Emma's earlier comment suddenly came to mind, and his face hardened.

She _would_ make good on her promise and break into the storage room the moment she realized he wasn't home. Once that girl decided she was going to do something, she was going to do it, consequences be damned. And she had already been eyeing it for the last few weeks.

He had to move it _now_.

Emmett shut off the television, quietly leaving the living room.

He pulled a key out of his pocket, and the padlock gave a deep _click_ before he rattled it out of place. Entering the storage room, he shut the door behind him and turned on the light, eyes wandering over the dormant DeLoreon to the back doors. The van was parked right outside.

No one could know about it. Not yet.

**. Please Review .**


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